advertising for new club

[Tyler]

I'm starting a new nightclub, & am wondering all the different kinds of advertising you guys do. I'm going to get a commercial on a local radio station. What other kinds do you recommend?
Thanks!

[jbrett]

The more the better. But remember that you should only advertise to the people you want to appeal to, and not to those who don't. My boss paid thousands of pounds as he wanted to advertise on a new radio station, the adverts were good, and played every 30mins, but no one listened to te radio station, so it was a waste of money. I did warn him....

The same money used for that advert could have put us massive adverts in the news papers for weeks, paid for big bill boards and things like that.

The key is to make sure no matter what you do you FILL the venue, even if tt means all your friends and family come. But fill it with the kind of people you want to attract, Give out lots of free admission tickets for the opening night,, if the venue holds 1000 people, give out 3000 free passes.

Buy a mail list to let every one in free.

Best advertise ment is word of mouth, fill the place, make sure everyone who works there makes a effort for everyone to have a reallt good time,go over the top... If people enjoy the night they will come back and so will every one they told about it.

After your opening night, give them tickets for th next week to get in..... After that you'll find your club hopefully up and running.

[Tyler]

jbrett, thanks man.

[Baudtender]

Hard-earned full beer in front of me, both barrels loaded:

Stop doing what everyone else is doing. Go buy the book
"Guerilla Marketing" and allow yourself the possibility of
a paradigm shift for how you think about promoting your
business. There is nothing in this book that will change your
life, yet everything in this book can change your
life if you get the point and adapt the line of thinking to your
business.

Stop throwing your money away on ineffective and horribly
expensive advertising. You've heard the buzzphase
"Advertising Sells!" - well, it's true - if you sell advertising.

Advertising reps sell advertising - they know the failure rate
of businesses in our industry better than the average owner.
Get this out of your head - they have no vested interest in
your success. "The better I do, the more money they make"
would be a fine strategy if it weren't for the fact that their
line of work is just a bit more transient than your busboys.
A couple of months from now, they'll probably be selling
mattresses. You'll be stuck with a 12-month contract that
rivals your electric bill. God bless you for your altruisism.

The real secret to advertising success is to never, ever pay for
advertising unless you can quantify and qualify the results. If
you pay big bucks for an event ad and you've got a packed
house, you might be making a huge mistake to think that the
paid ad did it for you - word of mouth is a zillion times more
effective and productive. Anheuser-Busch (and for the same
reason, big chain franchises) have an entirely different
advertising goal than a single unit club or small chain. You follow
their lead and do what they do, you're gonna take it where the
sun doesn't shine before you wake up. Name saturation is
a game for those with huge budgets and limited creativity.

So how does one quantify and qualify advertising?

Think this way - there is no such thing as free cover - there is
free cover if you bring in a newspaper coupon or say the "secret"
phrase mentioned prominently in your radio ads. Then sit back
and see what any given ad brought you back in returns. From
the returns, you can directly calculate what you spent and got
back (yeah, sure, there will be word-of-mouth taint for oral
passwords, but I still consider that quantifiable so long as they're
coming through my door.)

But there're hundreds of ways to get better results without
spending a penny up front. Let me give you just one to get
your juices flowing:

Here's a thought - turn your regular customers into advertising
reps FOR YOU. Give them coupon cards with a serial number
that identifies them (much like you'd give to the local cab-drivers
in exchange for unspecified kickbac........ummm.....compensation.)
Tell them that for every card you get back at the door with their
number on it, they get higher and higher rewards/VIP status
(with appropriate penalties for crackwhores and gangbangers
showing up with their cards.) If they bring in 5 new customers
per week, would you give them free meals? Free drinks? A
trip to the Bahamas? Actually, if only 1 of the 5 becomes a
regular, the Bahamas trip would be a bargain compared to your
paid advertising returns. You need to judge their character and
motivations - it could be that promising them rewards would
insult their sense of honor. You still reward them, you just do
it appropriately.

Amazingly enough, if YOU pick your customers, if YOU choose
who promotes your business, you may spend less time lamenting
the idiots that are attracted to mass-advertising. Hmmmmm?
A business that advertises to a demographic has to necessarily
filter and persevere and tolerate a whole lot more than those
who let the desired demographic advertise for them.

Advertising salespeople are time killers. Only greenhorn owners
and managers will give them 5 minutes on a cold call (which
usually inflates to consume half an afternoon.) Get hard, get
smart, and understand the nature of the beast - you can survive
without 95% of the advertising that's for sale - IF you
concentrate on your best and cheapest advertising, which is
attached to the butts on your barstools. Ask yourself this - if all
of this advertising were so great, why aren't we beating down
_their_ doors. Why do they pay their people on a commission
basis to make cold calls all day?

When you CHOOSE to spend money on advertising, it is to bring
in new blood that you can't reach any other way, and NEVER
single-time visitors (they're a straight out loss.) Get them in the door and let your service do the rest to convert them to regulars.

And make damned sure that those regulars have a vested
interest in promoting your business. The theory that "oh hell,
I've heard that radio ad 147 times, it sounds so neat I just have
to check out that place" is a loser's strategy designed by those
who sell advertising. Cheap cable TV or radio ads in off-peak
periods is cheap because they damn well know that no one is
watching or listening (except for insomniac club owners.)

150,000 quantified listeners to your ad means no business for
you whatsoever if they aren't qualified to be your likely customers
( A] Being awake at 4:15am is not qualification, and B] you are
not a direct-mail or infomercial enterprise that knows you can sell a styrofoam comb to 1 out of every 225,000 ad exposures - you
live and die by repeat business and word of mouth and you need
a very low ratio for exposure/visit for advertising to be profitable.)

For a new place, in advance of opening, there isn't much that
can replace good, creative, thought-provoking, well-placed
advertising. The less said, and the more poignant, the better.
Get the buzz moving, get people talking, get them in the door.
If they come in your door once and they don't come back,
advertising may be your problem, but it sure as hell isn't
your solution.

For existing businesses, I firmly believe that 80% of all advertising
is entirely wasted, because they are too mesmerized by sales
bullshit, mimicry of others, fear of changing the way "Things Have
Always Been Done And We Don't Want Our Competitors To Look
Better Than Us", and denial of the fact that their service and
servants are subpar but its a lot easier to advertise from a
distance than fix what's in their face.

Lastly, I want to underline a very profound point that jbrett
made - your employees can be, and should be your best
advertising. They should be hustling for customers every
waking moment and opportunity, and should have the same
incentives I mentioned above for customers.

So I'm opinionated. I paid for it. Big time. Passionate rebuttals
are always welcome.

Baudtender

[Tyler]

Wow baudtender, that's the longest reply I've ever got. Thanks for all the advice and your opinions. I think that for the week before I open, I'll probably advertise pretty heavy on the radio station. Then after my first night I'll let word of mouth do most of my advertisng. Thanks again!

[Baudtender]

Tyler - you're more than welcome! Once you start building up
a customer list (age-checking devices at the door can be
wonderful for this) you can also start doing some targeted
direct mail with incentive coupons - very cost efficient for a
pre-qualified audience.

I don't want to completely turn you off of media advertising - it
has its place and can be very effective. But it takes a lot more
brainwork and effort to spend your money wisely on media
advertising, and that's why many businesses get so little in
return for their advertising dollar. For example, with some
forethought and creativity, you can still play the name saturation
game with very little out of pocket expense.

Good luck,
Baudtender

[Tyler]

Thanks again! I ordered that book yesterday. I think that to get a big crowd on my opening night, that radio would be the best. Don't you. After that direct mail could be good, you could send out surveys or something to get their addresses. But for starting out, I think radio is the most effective way to reach my target audience.

[Andrew]

This is what works for me (I know you have gone over this...)

I get all my event details from magazines and newspapers. If I were promoting a 'young adults' event, I would also target university publications etc.

A few attractive flyers in the right places can work wonders; I still have flyers and posters from memorable events. If the artwork grabs me, I keep that as well!

Of course, setting up a website for an event and gazetting future events is a nice touch, as well.

[Tyler]

Hey thanks andrew. I thought about maybe getting permission from area high schools and putting flyers on peeps cars.

[Andrew]

... Tyler, take a look at this site as an example of flyers and promotion via a web site. I have recently made friends with the promoter of this event and it is a spectacular success. But be warned that it is a mixed (gay/straight) event; the best event in town! (I reckon)

http://www.queernation.com.au/dates.html

Some of the photos may not be to your liking but should you go there, you will see some of my favorite DJ's.

I suspect with the amount of reseach that you are intelligently conducting, your events will be popular as well!

[Tyler]

Thanks a lot, andrew.

[David]

I feel that we all need to advertise in some sort of medium. Even if it's service advertising.

[Tyler]

Thanks for your input!

[Cleyton]

I agree with Baudtender, who simply puts, it's easier and less expensive to retain a customer than to get new ones.

This model is followed by many top company's.

But everybusiness needs some form of advertising. But you need to target it. First look at your regular customer. Literally ask them what else they do. Find a range and target that other market. It may be that they all read the same weekly, or all go to the same school, or all live in a certain area, or all listen to the same station.

Hope it helps.

[Tyler]

Ya, thanks!